


From the Nest

by kitsunealyc



Category: The Memoirs of Lady Trent - Marie Brennan
Genre: For Science!, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8888740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsunealyc/pseuds/kitsunealyc
Summary: Natalie Oscott has always worked to help others to soar. Now it's her turn.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thelittlestbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlestbird/gifts).



“I’ve several ladies of my acquaintance who have referred to the corset as a death cage, but you, my dear, are taking that notion far too literally.” Miriam Farnswood tugged on the lacings criss-crossing up Natalie Oscott’s spine, inch-by-inch cinching the space between them closed.

They were alone, though just outside the tent that sheltered Natalie from oglers, she could hear the murmur of a crowd and the whistling wind coming off the coast southeast of Falchester. A crowd gathered to see _her_. Some to wish her well, some to watch her fail, and many undoubtedly to gawk. News of this event had spread through the crowds attending the Grand Science and Exploration Exhibition of Scirland. Perhaps if it hadn’t Natalie might have rethought her current madness, but with such crowds and such expectation of failure... she was committed.

She lifted her arms and lowered them again, testing the range of movement her... death cage, to borrow Miriam’s term... allowed her.

“Would you believe that I consulted with several corsetieres in the making of this?” Natalie peered over her shoulder, past one of a pair of bulky pouches filled with tightly-rolled silk, to give Miriam a smile that belied Natalie’s churning gut and clammy hands. “Marvelous feats of engineering, corsets. Entirely underappreciated. Not that you’d get me into one if I can avoid it. One of the many perks of being on the shelf is that I’m rarely forced to follow such constraints these days...”

And now her nerves had her babbling. She clamped her teeth against more, but Miriam must have deduced the cause of the torrent. She gave Natalie’s bulky shoulder a gentle pat. “I would dearly love to see someone try to force you into anything, my dear. Now, how is that? Snug enough?”

Natalie lifted her arms again and lowered them, twisted her torso as much as she might, even kicked a leg to one side and the other. The rattling of synthetic dragonbone and the heavy flap of canvas followed her every move.

“I... believe so. Much more, and I would think breathing should become a difficulty. I wouldn’t want to faint while I...” She choked on the rest. Was she really about to do this? She usually left such madcap escapades to Isabella. Her friend and mentor had made a reputation on performing—and more to the point, _surviving_ —such feats of derring-do.

And yet, what choice was left to Natalie? She must either prove herself and her work, or be declared a fraud and made a laughingstock not only in scientific circles, but throughout the population of Falchester. Possibly to a greater extent even than that.

 _And do you not have any more faith in yourself than your detractors have in you? It will work._ She shook herself, setting off another cascade of rattles, and turned to face Miriam. “How do I look?”

“I believe you would cause less of a stir if you went out in your corset and crinolines,” Miriam said, as dry as an Akhian desert.

Pulling a face, Natalie glanced down at the contraption she wore.

Ribs threaded through a cinched-tight suit of undyed canvas. There had been no time to make the prototype suit beautiful. And really, function was Natalie’s main concern. The ribs followed the curve of breast, waist, and hip, very much like the corset Miriam had compared it to. More ribs ran the length of Natalie’s arms and legs. She could bend them to an extent, but they served as a rigid reminder that she should—she _must_ —keep her arms and legs straight.

And connecting those limbs, canvas wings, stiffened with synthetic dragonbone, stretched like webbing. Or, more to the point, stretched like the glider wings of a coney-sized species of dragon that Isabella had discovered and sketched in her travels through Va Hing. It was Isabella’s sketches and diagrams, her description of the way the creature used its gliders to catch the wind and soar from treetop to treetop, that caught Natalie’s attention and imagination. Isabella had been more concerned with the niggling question of whether gliding counted as true flight, and thereby whether the little creature could be classified as a true dragon.

Natalie’s attention had been drawn along entirely different paths. Gliding or flight. She would take either. And gliding had always seemed the easier of the two to achieve.

The webbing, so like that Va Hing gliding dragon—if Isabella had ever named it, Natalie never learned of it—kept Natalie from raising her arms above waist height, kept her from taking too long a stride. And yet, if her calculations and diagrams were correct—and they _were_ —the scandalous suit would also allow Natalie to fly.

“There is still time to withdraw from this madness,” Miriam said softly. “Mr. Shetterly’s words were intemperate. Anyone having the smallest acquaintance with sense knows that your paper was only meant to be theoretical. Why risk yourself—”

“Because I am tired,” Natalie snapped. She grimaced and softened her tone. “I am tired of being dismissed as foolish, or a dilettante, or a poseur. I am tired of condescending smiles and pats on the head even from gentlemen who claim to be our colleagues and allies, as though they are doing us some great favor with their approval. Mr. Shetterly may have been intemperate enough to speak his protest aloud, but he was only giving voice to the opinions that many people share. My designs... they _all_ work in theory, but the only one I’ve ever constructed and tested in the field was in Eriga. And why should I expect anyone to take that event only on my word?”

Miriam busied herself with folding Natalie’s discarded clothes into a bundle. “And Dame Isabella’s. And Mr. Wilker’s.”

Natalie snorted, a terribly unladylike sound, but then, she hardly paid lip-service to ladylike behavior these days. “Isabella and Mr. Wilker have proven themselves. It is past time I do the same.”

“And if you are... hurt in the trying?”

Natalie knew the question that Miriam had diverted from asking. If her design failed, it wouldn’t mean injury for her. It would mean death, either on the shore or in the cold waters of the Scirland Channel. She took a deep breath, or as deep a breath as her flying suit would allow.

“Then at least I will have tried,” she said softly. The crowds were waiting. The wind and the cliff and the cold water of the ocean beyond. If she failed.

She wouldn’t fail. She wouldn’t _fall._ She would fly.

“Bring me my goggles.”


End file.
